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A privilege of being a general was not having to imitate a mole. Victor Radcliff clucked when that figure of speech crossed his mind. England had moles. So did the mainland of Europe, and so did Terranova. Atlantis had none, nor any other native viviparous quadrupeds but for bats. In their place, burrowing skinks went after worms and underground insects here.
His ancestors had left England more than three centuries before. Habits of speech from the mother country still persisted, though. He wondered why.
"Sometimes the spade is as useful as the musket," he said, trying to clear his mind of moles.
"Sometimes being on the wrong end of the one hurts almost as much as with the other," Blaise replied tartly.
He might have been right about that. Whether he was or not, fieldworks would help the Atlanteans hold General Howe's army away from New Hastings. Victor worried less about the Royal Navy here than he had up at Weymouth. Unlike the smaller town, New Hastings already had seaside works to challenge warships. They'd been built to hold off the French, but no law said they couldn't fire at men-of-war flying the Union Jack.
Afterwards, Radcliff remembered he'd had that thought only a few minutes before the distant thunder of ca
"Aren't they just?" Victor said, and ran for his horse. The beast stood not far away. He untied it, sprang up onto its back, and rode for the shore as fast as it would carry him.
Sure as the devil, English frigates and men-of-war tried conclusions with the coast-defense batteries. If they could smash the forts and silence the guns, they would be able to bombard New Hastings at their leisure. The men-of-war carried bigger guns than any the forts mounted.
But the star-shaped forts had walls not of oak but of bricks backed by thick earth. Their long twelve-pounders could shoot as far as any warship's guns. And they could fire red-hot shot, which was too dangerous to use aboard ship. If a red-hot ball lodged in a man-of-war's planking…
Somewhere right around here, all those years ago, Edward Radcliffe and his first party of English settlers had landed. They'd killed honkers and fought against red-crested eagles. Now, reckoning themselves Englishmen no more, their descendants fought against redcoats and Royal Navy alike.
Crash! A big ca
Ca
None of the Royal Navy vessels out there did. He might have known they wouldn't. That would have been too easy. They went right on exchanging murder with the seaside forts.
And one of them noticed the lone man on the strand. Maybe a seagoing officer turned a spyglass on Victor and noticed he was dressed like an officer. Any which way, two or three ca
He wasn't ashamed to withdraw. One man armed with sword and pistol was impotent against a Royal Navy flotilla.
Or was he? One man with sword and pistol was, certainly. One man armed with a working brain? Victor smiled to himself. He could almost hear Custis Cawthorne asking the question in just those terms.
More than a hundred years before, the pirates of Avalon had discommoded a fleet of Atlantean, English, and Dutch men-of-war with fireships. A few fishing boats were tied up at the piers that jutted out into the sea. The wind lay against them, though. Whatever Victor came up with, that wouldn't work.
Despite the ca
He suddenly started to smile again. "By God!" he said. Better ba
Victor shouted for ru
That flag told a great, thumping lie. The yellow jack hardly ever came this far north. It broke out in Freetown now and again, and more often down in what had been French Atlantis. But, while Atlanteans knew that, Englishmen might well not. The warning of flags wouldn't keep the Royal Navy from bombarding the forts. It might prevent a landing by Royal Marines.
And it might make General Howe think twice about assailing New Hastings. No general in his right mind would want to expose his troops to yellow fever. Howe would think the Atlantean rebels were welcome to a town stricken by the disease. He might even think it God's judgment upon them. Whatever he thought, he would think staying away was a good idea.
That much Victor foresaw. He didn't tell the men of the Atlantean Assembly that the flags lied. Sometimes the less you told people, the better-or more secret. Some of them rapidly discovered pressing business well away from New Hastings. They preferred risking capture by General Howe to the yellow jack.
Isaac Fe
"Neither had I." Victor didn't care to use the lie direct, even if the lie indirect troubled him not at all.
The current speaker of the Atlantean Assembly raised a gingery eyebrow. "I… see. So the wind sits in that quarter, does it?"
"It does," Radcliff replied. "And I will add, sir, that your discretion in this regard may keep it from swinging to some other, less salubrious, one."
"Salubrious, is it?" Fe
"Better entertainment there than in most of the taverns," Victor said, "and less chance of coming away with a chancre or anything else you don't want. You may tell him, sir. I rely on his discretion."
"Then you must believe all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds," Fe
"I do believe that, candidly," Victor said, and the speaker winced. Victor went on, "Whether the same may be said for the world in which we find ourselves may be a different question.''
"So it may," Isaac Fe
"I should hate to impose such terms on the illustrious members of the Atlantean Assembly, however tempting that might be," Victor said. Fe
"I shall do that." Fe
"You have my word," Victor said. He wouldn't have minded if the Englishmen caught and hanged a few Atlantean Assemblymen. Nor would he have been surprised if Fe
He smiled to himself. Doing anything at all after the war was won would be very fine.